Authors' Note : So this is what happened: HousesHead13 (another writer here on ) emailed me with an idea for a fic, wherein all sorts of terrible things would happen to House. I said 'that's a nice idea but I'm busy writing another story at the moment, I don't think I can write anything else'. So they wrote the first scene and sent it to me. Intrigued, I wrote a few more lines and sent it back to them. They wrote some more. Forty thousand words (and still going) later we have this story. Later chapters will include some contributions from another writer -nickythehippi - who joined with us for some flashback scenes to House's childhood.
Warnings - Oflymonddreams coined a phrase for this sort of fic - 'horrible things happen to House' and that about sums this fic up. This is a full-on slavery fic. It contains multiple instances of both physical and sexual abuse of Greg House, lots of humiliation scenes, restraints, caging, corporal punishment, flashbacks to childhood abuse, abuse of power and anything else we could think up. Proceed with caution - it's a very rough ride. Viewer discretion is advised :)
There are no pairings and it is NOT a dark Wilson fic.
No one was born to be a servant or a slave.
Who can tell me the colour of the rain?
(The Power of One, Sonata Arctica)
It was three years since Doctor Gregory House had disappeared. He had just walked away from his old life, from the people who knew him. They had kept looking for him every day to start with, but after a while they lost hope. The man they had known was gone. They had to accept that.
The prestigious medical conference was held in New York. Most of the people attending it were staying in the hotel where the conference was being held. Foreman and Chase attended as representatives of the Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital diagnostic team. At one time it had been a world famous - and controversial - team. Now Foreman led the team, and although he had been unable to fill House's shoes the team still kept Diagnostics operating, against all the odds.
Wilson was also attending the conference. As always he felt House's loss keenly - seeing Foreman in his friend's place still hurt every day. His life had been consumed for a long while by trying to find House - not wanting to lose another man like he had Danny. His work had suffered until finally Cuddy had gently put her foot down. Wilson had to decide whether he wanted to get on with his own life or not. He'd tried to put House behind him, and seek a new life but secretly still held out hope that one day he would find his friend again.
After the day's presentations all three hit the bar of the hotel.
A slave cleaned one of the many bathrooms at the luxurious hotel. He was weary from a long day's work - the latest in a succession of long days. Every bone in his body ached and the wound in his leg was an agony. He wore a pair of sports shorts, and a white t-shirt with the Rent-A-Slave logo on back and front, both items both heavily stained and torn. A pair of frayed sandals were on his feet, and a heavy black metal collar sat around his neck - reminding him of what he had become. His body was completely shaven of all hair, including his face and head. He was as bald as any of Wilson's cancer patients. On his right cheek he bore a tattoo - the SAC initials - marking him as a slave - as property. As worthless human shit.
It was only seven at night, but the conference at the hotel was filling the bar with people in a partying mood. Many of them were already drunk, and several had made their ways to the bathroom - and found the slave cleaning there a handy source of additional entertainment. He'd already been urinated upon and worse.
He was scrubbing the urinals when he heard them come in. There were three of them, their voices raised in a laughing conversation. He knew each one. All three. His heart pumped harder and adrenaline surged through his veins. Desperately he kept his head turned away and stayed on his knees, scrubbing, willing them not to see him.
He knew they weren't the kind of people who would want to hurt a slave for sport. If he kept working they'd ignore him. They wouldn't take any more notice of a slave than a piece of furniture. If he just kept quiet. They'd ignore him.
They were already drunk, talking about Chase's innate ability to make women fall in love with him. They were drunk and laughing... happy. They had forgotten about him, and moved on. He wasn't surprised. He had been an ass to these people, to everyone; his absence would have been felt only as a relief.
He let out a silent sigh of relief when his old friends went to wash their hands after pissing in the urinals he had just cleaned. They hadn't seen him, and they weren't going to see him. Shortly his supervisor was going to pick him up and take him back to the building where he would sleep after eating his daily portion of slave chow. The slaves went to sleep early so they could wake in time to start another twelve hour day.
It was Wilson who screwed everything up of course. It was Wilson who saw an orthopaedic cane in the mirror and a thin but tall man kneeling besides it, cleaning. The slave heard footsteps walking towards him and swallowed hard again, his heart beating fast, his blood pressure accelerating with each second that passed. He kept his gaze down and continued his work, pretending to be mopping the floor.
An idea popped into the slave's head. He wasn't going to be House. He was going to be just a mind wiped slave, another piece of furniture. A body with no soul to come back to it.
"Hey, boy, look at me," he heard Wilson say softly. The slave wiped his face blank of expression and looked up at Wilson. He could see the horror in Wilson's eyes when he looked back at him. Wilson collapsed on his butt on the ground. His mouth opened but no sound came out. When the slave looked past Wilson he could see Foreman and Chase watching, confused. Then they stared at the slave, their eyes reflecting their recognition. This was their former boss.
Chase remained frozen to the spot while Foreman advanced on the slave, his eyes never leaving him.
"House," he said, fear and doubt in his voice.
A shudder ran through the slave's spine. He hadn't heard that name in two years. He was just Greg, or a 'boy', or 'useless piece of shit', he wasn't House. He kept his blank expression against all the odds, and talked softly.
"Sir, this slave is called Greg, sir. I don't know any person called House. I am sorry, sir."
"He's been mind-wiped," Foreman said. He looked at Wilson, who was still sitting on the floor in shock. Wilson's eyes were wet with tears, a sight that pulled at the slave's heart. He held his blankness - they must never know.
He never thought that he would be so happy to see his supervisor appear in the entrance to the bathroom, an angry expression on his face.
Wilson couldn't seem to get his mind together. The sight of House, kneeling on the floor, with a collar around his neck had shocked him. The blank expression, and the realisation that he had been mind-wiped, that his brilliant mind was gone, had devastated him. For three years he had held out hope that he would see House again, that he would return to the hospital and resume his practise. Even after he assured Cuddy that he had moved on, and put the past behind him, he had still had a sliver of hope, deeply buried. Now he had found House and lost him again.
He looked up as he heard a sound at the door of the bathroom. A man in a uniform was standing there.
"What's going on here?" He asked, a scowl on his face as his gaze fixed on House.
Wilson watched, shocked, as the man went up to House and pulled on his collar, holding it tight. House's knees were lifted slightly off the floor and he made an agonised choking sound.
"Has this boy been bothering you, gentlemen?" The man was carrying a thin cane in one hand and he lashed out at House with it, still holding tightly to his collar. House yelped in pain, the sound strangled by the choking hold on his collar.
"Please, let him go. He didn't do anything..." Wilson got off the floor, exchanging shocked glances with Chase and Foreman. "Don't hurt him." Foreman moved towards the man but stopped when the man let go of House's collar.
House huddled into a kneeling position, his head hanging down - his breath coming in agonised gasps. Wilson's heart broke to see him trying to make him cowering and making himself as small as possible at the man's feet. What the hell had happened to him these last three years? How had they broken him like this?
"I'm sorry - I just slipped." Wilson said quickly, tearing his gaze away from House and focusing it on the man. "Your slave was trying to help me."
The man laughed and struck House again with the cane. House flinched away from him. "Boy thinks he's better than he is. Fancies himself as some sort of doctor. He's tried to 'help' people before." He laughed again and poked House with the cane. "What a joke - a slave doctor!" He kicked at House. "You, boy. Say you're sorry to these men. Do it properly or you'll get a thrashing tonight."
House hesitated and received another lash for his trouble. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled over to Wilson, pressing his lips to Wilson's shoe.
"This slave is sorry they bothered you, sir. Please do what you like with this slave."
Wilson couldn't find his voice for a moment. Then he shook his head. "I don't want you to do anything. I accept your apology."
He watched in shock as House repeated the performance, crawling over to both Foreman and Chase in turn and kissing their shoes. When he was done he returned to the man's side, still crawling.
The man unhitched a chain leash from his belt and clipped one end on to House's collar.
"You can do another two hours now for wasting my time. Get your lazy ass up off the floor and come on."
House struggled to his feet, his bad leg clearly hurting him. His head was still down and he didn't look at them as he was led out of the room.
The three men looked at each other in shocked silence. Then Wilson spoke.
"He knows who he is. We have to get him back. We can't leave him here. Somehow we need to help him."
Foreman looked at Chase, who nodded in agreement.
"Whatever it takes, Wilson, whatever it takes."
Three years earlier
He heard a familiar pair of Louis Vuitton high heels clicking rapidly towards him and accelerated his pace towards the door. It was already after five, and time to go home for him. His leg was killing him and he was looking forward to putting it up on the couch and numbing the hell out of it with booze and pills.
"House! House! Wait!" He heard Cuddy calling. He kept his head down and pushed on towards the door as fast as his three legs could carry him. He'd reached the almost safety of the parking lot before she caught up to him, grabbing his arm and yanking him off balance.
"What do you want? Sex? Sorry, done my quota for today. There might be an opening tomorrow - see Cameron, she keeps all my appointments."
"I need you to take a new case. Cameron told me you'd finished the last one."
"Yes, one case per week. My job is done. I'm going home."
"Patient is a four year old child. He's been sent to us from Princeton-General. They can't work out what's killing him. He needs you. He's deteriorating fast, he'll be dead by the morning when drag yourself in here. You can spare another few minutes for this kid - how much can that hurt?" She thrust the blue folder at him.
He took the folder reluctantly, flipping through the pages. "How much can a few minutes hurt? I've been here three days with my last patient. I'm not a fucking slave, Cuddy."
Cuddy looked around, as if she expected the SAC bogeyman to be lurking in the shadows.
"Don't even say it, House. I don't treat you like that. Those poor people..."
"You an abolitionist, Cuddy? Want to save their poor souls? Better watch out, don't want the SAC poking through your underwear drawer looking for collar shears." House had made his feelings on slaves pretty clear in the hospital - he didn't want to talk about that shit. He didn't want anything to do with them.
He tuned Cuddy's protests out and mulled over the symptoms. Annoying, itchy red marks on his chest, lung scarring not consistent with medication use, no food allergies. Maybe heavy metal toxicity? Explained the lungs, the itching and the swollen tongue and throat.
"Heavy metal toxicity," he declared, tossing the file back at Cuddy who fumbled but caught it.
"Heavy metal toxicity? He's four, House. How would he be exposed?"
"When I was four my neighbours were sucking paint off the walls. Of course, that could explain a lot of things about them..."
"But..."
"Talk with my team. Chase and Cameron are on call. Or they might be having sex in the janitor's closet. Lead poisoning is the most common. Test for that and do the food allergy tests again. I'm out of here." He opened his car door and got in.
"Chase and Cameron are together? And they're having sex in the hospital? House..."
He shut the door of the car and made gestures that indicated he couldn't hear a word that Cuddy was saying.
Then he drove off. A night of pleasant oblivion was waiting.